Bulgaria! Days 1-2

Hello all! Five days into my Bulgaria trip isn't too late to start a blog, is it? I have 7 more days to go and OODLES of pictures, so I thought I'd share a bit. I'll start with a few days at time until I'm caught up to current.

We headed to O'Hare on Tuesday May 22 for a excruciatingly long day of travel. Over 3 hours to the aiport, followed by the transatlantic flight with a short layover in London. We arrive in Sofia a zillion hours later (1:30 pm on Wednesday in Sofia, 5:30 am in IL, followed by the longest ride ever to our hotel in the center of the city. We then had to unload all our luggage and instruments in the rain, and walk 2 a block to the hotel, since the traffic was so bad our bus couldn't drop us off in front of the hotel itself.

Exceedingly tired, we got to rest for a few hours, shower (in a shower that is not actaully sepearted from the rest of the bathroom - everything gets wet - even the toliet paper), whatnot, until we did a little tour of the city followed by group dinner of tradional Bulgarian cuisine.

Here is where I note that our itinerary is CRAZY packed. We were engaged from the second we got of the plane with classes, lectures, and long rehearsals, without any time to recover from jet lag. It's been 6 days and I still don't think I've recovered. But I'll put a cap on the complaining for now and try to share the better moments of the trip and some pictures...

Thursday morning I think reminded us all why were where there. All complaining, crabbiness and general annoyance was held at bay while we attended a rehearsal of the Macedonian Ensemble "Illinden. Truly remarkable playing and singing...music-making. After some mini-instruction in song and string-playing, we shared some chocolates and went outside for some dancing.